As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) constantly strives to rewrite the Taiwan narrative, it is important to regularly update and correct the stereotypes that the PRC tries to foist on Taiwan and the world.
A primary stereotype is that Taiwan has always been a part of China and its corollary that Taiwan has been a part of China since time immemorial. Both are false.
Taiwan has always been a part of the vast Austronesian empire, which stretched from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east and from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. That part of Taiwan’s history needs recognition, as many in the West remain ignorant of it.
Taiwan has never been a part of China. Parts of Taiwan have been colonized by other nations including the Dutch, Spanish, fleeing Ming loyalists and pursuing Manchu rulers. Although each had a temporary claim to a part of Taiwan’s history, the only nation to control and rule Taiwan was Japan.
Japan received the Manchu section of Taiwan in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki; it did not get it from China. The Manchu Empire was not China, but rather China at that time was a part of the Manchu Empire. Japan set out to conquer and control the whole island.
Taiwan has appeared on the maps of many nations, and under many names, but designation on a map cannot be used as a qualification for possession. It is simply recognition of location.
A second and related cliche that is often tossed around in Western history is the erroneous idea of what constitutes China.
After the Mongols conquered the lands from Europe in the west to Korea in the east, and from Russia in the north to India in the south, they divided their empire into four khanates. China was part of the Khanate of the Great Khan, which included Korea and Tibet. While Chinese culture persevered in some areas, China itself was part of the Mongolian Empire.
During the Ming Dynasty, China broke free from Mongol rule and was separate for about 276 years before it was again swallowed up, this time by the expanding Manchu Empire.
Under the Manchu’s Qing Dynasty, China was ruled by the Manchus for about 267 years.
Hence arose the constant cry in China, but not Tibet, Xinjiang, or Mongolia: “Overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming.”
However, when such advocates made that cry, they did not want to return to Ming borders, but wanted also to acquire other Manchu territory in the bargain.
Although Chinese ethnicity and culture persisted in some areas under the Manchus, China was not a nation state.
This created a dilemma for the Republic of China’s (ROC) founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) in his many attempts to overthrow the Manchu rule. He and other advocates could not say that they wanted to restore China, because that would mean reverting to the borders of the Ming Dynasty. On the other hand, Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia also wanted to be free of Manchu rule.
Sun attempted to do it in the name of democracy, since democracy could cast a wide veiled cloak over Chinese territorial ambitions. He would die before the issue of Taiwan ever came into discussion of what constituted the “new China.”
While many people wanted to throw off the decaying Manchu rule, the question was how and in what way it would be replaced. Warlord general Yuan Shi-kai (袁世凱) set about trying to establish his own empire, but when he died the competing realm of warlords arose. China as “new China” never saw the democratic light of day.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entered the picture and wanted to spread its power across the splintering Manchu Empire. Japan also decided to stake a claim by establishing Manchu rule with the last Manchu Chinese emperor Puyi (溥儀) in Manchuko.
Taiwan throughout this period remained part of colonial Japan. Taiwan was not part of China, and it eventually sought its own independence.
The claim that Taiwan was stolen from China as alleged in the Cairo Declaration is also false. The part of Taiwan that the Manchus controlled had been lost in war between the Manchus and Japan. It was no more stolen from them or China than the Manchus “stealing” China from the Ming, Tibet from the Tibetans, Mongolia from the Mongolians and Xinjiang from the Uighurs. Each has been the result of war.
This returns Taiwan’s narrative to the end of World War II, and the 1952 Treaty of San Francisco in which Japan, as the first nation to control the whole of Taiwan, surrendered sovereignty over the territory.
However, Japan also never named a recipient. That narrative is another story to be told.
For now, it is important to counter the misconception that Taiwan has always been a part of China. Taiwan is Taiwan, and China is China.
Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan. For decades,
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus
RSS